Indian government takes major step to save vultures | Janaki Lenin

Almost a decade after banning the veterinary drug diclofenac, the Indian government has banned large vials of the drug meant for human use

The government of India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare finally issued a directive banning multi-dose vials of the non-steroidal pain-killer diclofenac in the last week of August.

For a decade, numbers of three species of vultures had been in a precipitous decline throughout the subcontinent. Millions of white-backed vultures shrank in number by 99.9% reduced to a mere 11,000 by the early 2000s. Populations of two other species - long-billed vulture and slender-billed vulture - dropped by 97%. All three are listed as critically endangered in the IUCN's Red List.